Opposite of Always(91)

“Maybe that’s for the best,” I tell him.

They order my legs spread apart, my cheek mashed against the back of their cruiser.

“Please,” I beg them, “my girlfriend’s dying. Please. Just five minutes. Please. A heart, have a heart. Just let me see her for five minutes and then you can haul me away to prison, throw away the key, whatever. Please. Please.”

I try dropping to my knees to beg, but that’s tricky when you’re physically restrained. The officer who put the cuffs on me looks over to the other officer, a dirty-blond woman with bloodshot eyes, and she sighs but nods.

The cuffs come off.

The elevator turtles its way to Kate’s floor.

We detour because the floor’s wet.

And then Kate’s nurse tells us visiting hours are over, but the woman officer intervenes, and the nurse rolls her eyes but steps aside.

It’s almost too late. Kate’s barely there.

“Kate,” I say softly.

She opens her eyes, a flash of panic. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“Hopefully saving you this time,” I say. “I’ve never told you this, but I love you, Kate.”

“What are you—”

But before she can finish I reach into my shoe, pull out the syringe, and fire it into her thigh. Her body quivers, like I’ve just hit her with a million amps.

The police tackle me, shouting curses into my ear, into the room.

As I fall to the ground, my nose crunching against the linoleum in a way that I know it’s broken, lots of feet dash into the room. There’s more shouting and people keep shaking me, blood dripping from my nostrils, asking me what I injected her with, what was in the syringe, and the truth is I couldn’t explain it if I wanted to.

This is the only thing that I could do. The only thing left.

I shut my eyes and I wait.





Five-ever





What Would Bill Murray Do?


“Excuse me, man, but you’re sort of damming up the steps.”

I turn to Kate and smile my heart out.

Because seeing her here on these steps means I have failed yet again.

But more importantly it means I get another chance.

I watch Groundhog Day for what I believe to be two sound reasons: 1) Bill Murray and 2) because while we are not exactly in the same shoes, I figure there is something to learn from watching a man relive the same day.

And I do learn. What not to do. How not to live.

I don’t want to spend my time perfecting myself in the eyes of other people. I’m not out to be the wittiest, the coolest, the most brilliant. Some Jack 5.0. Sure, if I can avoid some costly mistakes along the way, specifically on how to avoid hurting the people I love, then yes, absolutely sign me up. But I’m not going to use my power (or whatever you wanna call it) to study the right combination of words and memories to make Kate fall helplessly in love with me.

Because I believe our love is the only thing that’s for certain in these rewinds.

That no matter what happens, we are destined to love each other.

Maybe I’m a romantic. Maybe I’m a fool.

But I don’t need to wake up on the same day a thousand times to know that I love Kate and that I would do anything to wake up beside her for the rest of our days.

No matter how many. And no matter how few.

Whatever put me on these goddamn stairs is bigger than me, bigger than anything I’ve ever known. I’m supposed to be here. With Kate. Nowhere else. I’m going to keep showing up on these stairs, waiting for her to say excuse me for as many times as it takes.





Some Good Advice Amid Grocery Store Grossness


I tell Dad that maybe instead of a writer, I’ll be a scientist, a researcher, and dedicate myself to finding cures to especially crappy diseases.

Dad appears genuinely happy at this possibility. This is confirmed when he launches a throat-clearing monologue. Which I don’t mind, even though we’re in the grocery store, an endless row of milk cartons and jugs stretching before us.

“Is it safe to presume this has something to do with Kate?” he asks.

I nod. “Meeting her has made me reexamine a lot of things, I guess.”

“Jack, I happen to think it’s a great thing you’re considering. Sometimes you have to reinvent yourself. Decide what you really want to do in life. People always say you have to be happy with yourself first before you can find happiness with someone else. There’s truth to that, Jackie. But honestly, there’s something to be said for finding that person who reminds you how happy life can be. You find that person, boy or girl, and you never let them go. Your mom has opinions for days, and it can get tiring . . . for other people . . . me, it doesn’t bother me. That’s who she is, that’s who she was when I met her. But she’s also the person who makes me better. So if I have to choose between someone opining about which cereal actually has the most beneficial fiber and being some miserable fecally impacted poor lonely bastard, guess what I’m choosing—I’m choosing to crap regularly and be happy, Jackie boy. Every damn time, and each day I wake up new, I choose your mom.”

Which is when Mom, who apparently is not back in the car looking for coupons but instead eavesdropping around the corner, coos, “Oooooh, Abe, I choose you, too!”